Man's Greatest Work

    One of the greatest opportunities that we have been given in this life is to serve our fellow man. There are all sorts of people around us that could use a helping hand, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, or even an approaching smile. There are many instances in my life where I could have, or did, receive a small act of service from one person or another. There are many instances where I have been given the opportunity to do that myself. I was recently able to help a family pack up and move. Boxes needed to be made, clothes needed to be organized, blankets needed to be folded, and the list went on. Though they are packing up, they have yet to find a place to move to… I found as I was helping them, that I could look into each of their eyes and recognize them as a child of God. I all of a sudden began to realize that nothing that I could be doing at that moment was more important.

     There is a great saying in the Book of Mormon that says “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God.” (Mosiah 2:17, pg 148) It is through service that we can perform the greatest work that mankind can do, and that is to serve God.

Mormonism 101...

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a Mormon church leader, speaks to Law Students at Harvard University on the basics of the Mormon religion, as well as opens up to a question and answer session. He talks about the role of women in the church, their stance on the Trinity, Missionary work etc etc.

Watch this video and go to

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-101

to find out more!

This Sunday is a great day in which we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Might I invite you to remember Him always, but to especially remember the meaning of Easter.

     Matthew 22:31-32. Christ's response to the Sadducees' question, who claimed that there is no life after death, proclaims, "Have yes not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the LIVING." It has always been God's plan for us to live after this temporary state which we call morta...lity. But it is through Christ, and ONLY through him, that our lives are mercifully handed back to us. We celebrate Easter in remembrance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Savior, who overcame death so that we could too. Might I humbly give thanks to Him who gave me life, to Him which only asks of me to have faith, that I might have eternal life.
If you are interested in learning more about how Jesus Christ can help you in your life, facebook me!

Come, listen to a Prophet's Voice...

When I read the Bible, I sometimes have to think to myself  "Wouldn't it have been great to have been part of such a grand story?" I think of how when Moses led the people of Israel through the Red Sea by parting the waters. I think of how Noah built a great ark just before a flood of the entire earth occured. I think of how Daniel was preserved after having been thrown into a lion's den. I think of those type of people, who were quite literally messengers of God, who contained the power of God and were able to use that power for good in order to save their people. We, as Latter-Day Saints, boldly proclaim that those same men who were known as prophets and apostles, who acted under the authority of God to lead and guide His people, exist on this earth today. We faithfully follow the guidance of a living man who has been called of God to fill the office of a Prophet. He does so with the help of 12 Apostles who fill the same office that Christ's original 12 Apostles filled. In the book of Ephesians the Apostle Paul speaks of the structure of the household of God,   

19 Now therefore ye are no more ^astrangers and foreigners, but ^bfellowcitizens with the ^csaints, and of the ^dhousehold of God;

 20 And are built upon the foundation of the ^aapostles and ^bprophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief ^ccorner stone;

 21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

 22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

   

Might I boldly testify myself that we too are part of a great day and age where great miracles can and do occur around us. We have the opportunity to follow after a man who is called to the same office as Noah, Daniel, Moses etc, who has the same power as they did to accomplish the work of God on the earth. I invite everyone to come and listen to a prophet's voice.

This weekend, President Thomas S. Monson, our prophet of today, will be addressing everyone in a worldwide conference. If you would like to watch or listen to the Conference, you can find more information here:

http://www.lds.org/church/events/april-2012-general-conference-dates-announced?lang=eng

It can be watched live on TV and online. Scroll to the bottom of the linked article to learn more about TV program listings in your area.

Sorry I haven't written in the past few weeks, but I love this video about judging people...

For the Perfectionist...

It is too often that I catch myself trying to run faster than I have the ability to. What I mean by that is that I find that when I take on a task or decide to commit to something, I want to not only do it well, but with perfection. I get caught up in the little details of things, often times losing site of my purpose. My greatest weakness, I think, isn’t that I don’t try hard enough, but that I try too hard to reach a goal of perfection that may not be attainable for me.

I was recently reading in the book of Matthew (Bible, New Testament) when I came across a scripture that hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s in Matthew 9. It is when Jesus Christ is eating with sinners and publicans, that the Pharisees (a religious group of people who prided themselves in their strict observance of the law) ask Him why he chooses to surround himself with those who are so imperfect. Jesus, the perfect man, so simply responds that his purpose is not to call the righteous to repentance, but the sinners. He relates himself to a doctor, whose patients are not those who are healthy, but those who are sick…I then came to a realization that since we are all “sinners,” afflicted with the sickness of mortal life, we will never attain that perfection. The purpose of the Christ was to make up for those shortcomings that we humans all inevitably have.

            It has been quite humbling for me to accept my imperfections. Sometimes I just have to give it my all and hope that Christ will make up for the rest. Even in the small things. No one, besides Christ, has attained human perfection. It is through my own tiring efforts of trying to be perfect that I have found that there is something more powerful, more perfect, out there. And that once I’ve created my own imperfect piece of work, I can hand it to Him and he will turn it into a perfect masterpiece.

    

Pain Runs Deep...

Sometimes in life, pain runs deep… what I mean by that is that sometimes we find ourselves in grieving circumstances, or painful situations, whether it be a result of our own doings, or someone else’s, that we wonder why we have to experience such misery. I know what that feeling feels like. At least to some extent. I know what it feels like to have someone let you down. I know what it feels like to give someone your heart, and have them break it. I know what it feels like when you’ve let yourself down. I know what it feels like… to fall. In life, we’ve all fallen to sorrow or misery in one aspect or another.

One of the first stories in the Bible is the story of the first man, Adam, and his companion Eve. In this story, Adam and Eve lived in a perfect place called the Garden of Eden. Adam was told by God not to partake of a certain fruit in that garden, or else he would be cast out of Eden, and left to experience a miserable world. We all know the ending to this story, Adam did partake of the fruit, and he and Eve were cast out. They experienced pain, suffering, sin, and misery for the rest of their lives.

 Looking on that story, we might be inclined to feel sorry for Adam. In relation to us, we might be inclined to feel sorry for ourselves when we see that in the present, we are experiencing pain or misery. I would invite you to look on your pains in a different light, however. There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talks about the commonality between misery and joy. It says:

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden…wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no ^bjoy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no ^csin.”

Sometimes in life, pain runs deep. We may experience pains that cause us to question if life is even worth it. On the other hand, life also hands us those moments of pure joy. We must realize that if Adam hadn’t walked the path of misery, he wouldn’t have known the path to joy. So when those painful moments come to you in your walk of life, remind yourself that you are quite literally walking the path that Adam has paved for you.   For “Adam ^bfell that men might be; and men ^care, that they might have ^djoy.”

   

I came across a scripture in the Bible the other day…it was Amos 5:8 – “Seek him that maketh ^athe seven ^bstars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the ^cmorning, and maketh the day ^ddark with night: that calleth for the ^ewaters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: ^fThe Lord is his name:” It got me into thinking about science, physics in particular, and how man’s theories of what we’re made of and how we play a role in this great universe has evolved immensely. In fact, it was only a few centuries ago that man proposed that the earth was the center of the entire universe, and that the sun, moon, and stars revolved around this great planet we call earth. It was no sooner than when Galileo put his eyes up to the first telescope, however, that we realized that earth wasn’t the only planet in the outer space. Man came to realize that we might not be alone, and that we might not even lie at the center of our own solar system. Wow, has physics changed. Today we propose physical theories that purport to know everything from the smallest particle that every piece of matter is composed of all the way to how the largest pieces of mass react at speeds close to the speed of light.

If there is anything that modern science has taught me, it’s that there is so much more to life than what the eye can see. In fact, in the whole grand scheme of things, it seems to me that the eye sees relatively nothing. In that scripture I quoted at the beginning, we are encouraged to look to God, that great creator of the universe. That One that encompasses all that we have to see and more. For when we look outside of ourselves, we behold a marvelous piece of work. A piece of work so much bigger than us, something so much more glorious that we couldn’t bear looking back on the idea that we were the glorious ones at the center of the universe. Seek Him that maketh us, and he will show us His glory.

Of this I Know...

Ive been pondering the concept of faith lately. (Not that that should come to anyone’s surprise) Faith is a belief in something that is not seen, but is true. God asks us to have faith in Him. I find it interesting that God tells us to have faith in Him, or to believe in Him first, and then we can come to a sure knowledge of Him and His teachings. There’s a scripture in the Book of Mormon that kind of talks about this. It says …“if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.” (Alma 32:27, page 289-290) Then it goes on to talk about how faith is like a seed, and when you nourish it, it will grow, similar to how your belief, and eventual knowledge of God’s existence will grow…

Having been a track athlete for a number of years, I’ve found that this concept parallels how I’ve come to know what kind of an athlete I am, or what kind of abilities I have. Like many athletes, I want to know where my limits are, or how fast I really can run. However, I have the tendency to doubt my abilities and question whether I really can run as fast as my coach or fellow teammates tell me I can, even when I would seem to do well in some races. I would stand on the starting line and ask myself, “Am I really good enough to race these people?” But then my mind would always go back to something that my mom taught me as a girl, about believing in myself. She would tell me that only those people that believe they can win actually get the prize. On the alternative outlook, she would ask me, “do you think that those Olympic track athletes ever won a race without actually believing that they could win?” She was teaching me faith. I realized that I had to have faith in myself before I could actually see what I could do. This directly relates to our understanding and our coming to the knowledge that God is real, and that He plays a role in our lives. It is only until we take that step of faith or even “desire to believe” that He will show Himself unto us. If we but “experiment” upon His words, the words of Christ, we will come to know of a surety that He is there. There is real power in coming to know God. He knows everything about us, and He knows who we really can become. Through faith, we can know, or do, anything. “…for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed… nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

      

      

True Happiness...

The other day I ran across a book in the library that professed to know the things that would make me happy. The subtitle said something along the lines of "everything that you read in this book will shatter your deepest convictions about what will truly make you happy." I found that to be quite interesting... I think I found it most interesting to me at this point in my life because, as a missionary, that is actually my entire purpose. I go about teaching others about something that I know will make them truly happy. In fact, I profess that what I have to teach is the one thing that every person in this world needs in order to have that kind of happiness. It's not something, however, that will shatter anyone's convictions about what will make them happy. It will hopefully add to what they truly know within themselves will make them happy. As I teach people day to day, I see that light within them come to surface. Sometimes they say, "that makes sense," or "I know that's true." These are things that really seem "preprogrammed," or instinctly known within all of us that we only need to bring to remembrance.

I don't really know what things the author had to write about in that book. Maybe everything that he had to say was exactly everything that I have to say when I do missionary work. But I do know one thing… I know that it is only through the teachings of Jesus Christ, our savior, that we can truly be happy. Through His teachings, we come to find out who we are, what’s in store for us during and after this life, and ultimately, who we have the potential to be like… THAT is true happiness.

"All My Distress is going, going ... gone."


     I named this blog after a song written by one of my favorite bands, Relient K. (some of you might be familiar with that band :)) The song is about pressing on, or looking forward as we live our lives day to day, trying not to dwell on things that might stop us from progressing in life. I tend to have the habit of dwelling on things in the past, but I love the line in the song that says "And I won't sit back, and take this anymore cuz I'm done with that, I've got one foot out the door and to go back to where I was would just be wrong, I'm pressing on." We can look back on our mistakes and realize that maybe we did something wrong, but once we've changed that, there's no point in going back, just press on and make something new of yourself. I love that.
Just so you know, I'm not much of a blogger. Or I have never blogged until... NOW. I'm writing this blog as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
     Yes, I'm a Mormon. And I love sharing the message of Jesus Christ. So all of my posts have some relation to or association with Jesus Christ. But, please know that everything I write comes from the heart. I write these things because they truly come from ME, no one else.
     I am a convert to the LDS church. I love its teachings. I love the teachings of Jesus Christ. Because all of them are absolutely necessary and essential to being truly happy. There's a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talks about how when we build our foundation upon the teachings of Jesus Christ, we cannot fall. It's absolutely true. It's on page 378 of the Book of Mormon. Don't take my word for it though, if you haven't tried it out yet I would recommend giving it a try ;). 
     Well, I would like to bring my first post to a close by bearing my testimony that we humans are all here for a reason. The teachings of Jesus Christ help us to realize that reason, and when we strive to obey those teachings we really come to KNOW why they were given to us, who we are, where we're going in life, and who we really can become. With that, I would like to say... "All my distress is going going gone..." (Relient K)